CEC Gyanesh Kumar must resign to protect EC’s credibility: TPCC chief | Hyderabad News
Hyderabad: Congress ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs along with party workers staged protest demonstrations in all the district headquarters and a main rally was organised in Hyderabad under the leadership of Telangana Congress president B Mahesh Kumar Goud on Monday, demanding the resignation of chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar to protect the independence, credibility and institutional integrity of the Election Commission of India.The rally was led by TPCC president B Mahesh Kumar Goud from the Indira Gandhi statue at Necklace Road to the office of the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Telangana. As part of the protest, effigies of Gyanesh Kumar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah were burnt.Later, Mahesh Goud, along with deputy chief minister Bhatti Vikramarka, ministers Ponnam Prabhakar, D Sridhar Babu, Mohammed Azharuddin and G Vivek Venkataswamy, among others, met Telangana CEO C Sudarshan Reddy and submitted a memorandum.Mahesh Goud told reporters that Election Commission’s conduct was undermining democracy in the country and claimed that elections were being manipulated. “The actions of the poll panel are detrimental to democracy and the future of voters is at stake. The CEC of India has become a stooge of the BJP. The electoral process is being influenced to benefit the ruling BJP at the Centre,” he alleged.Deputy CM Bhatti Vikramarka said the repeated warnings given by AICC senior leader Rahul Gandhi that citizens’ voting rights were being systematically undermined through “vote theft” in the country over the past few years have now been proved true.He expressed deep concern over the manner in which citizens’ votes were allegedly being deleted in the name of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, stating that the acknowledgement of the issue by election commissioners themselves was an unfortunate development for the country’s democracy.“Rahul Gandhi had been fighting from the beginning to protect the Constitution and the voting rights of citizens. All political parties that believe in democracy and the Constitution should set aside their differences and join hands with the Congress in the fight to protect democratic values. Only those who do not have faith in the Constitution are staying away from the movement,” claimed Bhatti.In the memorandum, the PCC chief expressed serious concern over the functioning of ECI, its decision-making process and the issues emerging in connection with the SIR process during the tenure of Gyanesh Kumar as CEC of India.Leaders also stated that reports indicating that more than 13 crore names were deleted from the draft electoral rolls in 30 states and union territories as part of the SIR process were a matter of serious concern.Although Election Commission has stated that these were deletions from the draft electoral rolls and that statutory procedures were available for filing claims, objections and restoration of names, Congress party made it clear that the reports of deletions on such a massive scale required the highest levels of transparency, accountability and independent scrutiny.Major demands of CongressGyanesh Kumar must resign from the post of CEC of India, taking responsibility for questions concerning the functioning of Election Commission and public confidence in it.The minutes of meetings, orders, notes, objections and related records concerning the decisions reportedly questioned by the two election commissioners should be placed in the public domain to the extent legally permissible.An independent, transparent and comprehensive review should be conducted into reports that more than 13 crore names were deleted from the draft electoral rolls during the SIR process. The review should also examine whether any eligible voters were inadvertently deleted.Election Commission should disclose complete state-wise and constituency-wise details of the names deleted under the SIR, the reasons for deletion and the number of names restored after claims and objections.Election Commission should provide a clear public explanation regarding the objections reportedly recorded by the two election commissioners and disclose how those objections were considered before final decisions were taken.Strong safeguards must be put in place to ensure that no eligible citizen loses the right to vote due to administrative errors, inadequate verification, failure to receive proper notice or procedural lapses.
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